Marauders and Monopoly
by svvya
Summary: The trio comes across a monopoly game with recordings of the Marauders playing the same game in their day... T for some language...


I don't own Harry Potter- JK Rowling has that honor. I think the summary said it all, so enjoy!

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"Ron, Harry, are you two awake yet?" Without even a knock, Hermione Granger walked into the boy's dorm of the Gryffindor Common Room.

"Hermione," Harry said with a yawn, "get out of here, this is the _boy's _dormitory." The fifth year Harry Potter had already gotten changed and so had his friend Ron Weasley, but Ron had fallen back asleep and Harry was sitting on the edge of his bed.

"How many times do we have to go over the fact that girls can come up here?" Harry noticed that, even though Hermione rolled her eyes and was going to act annoyed with him for a little while, she had something that she wanted to show him and Ron... And she was holding a... Monopoly box?

"Are you planning on playing Monopoly? You can count me out, that game takes so long-" Harry stood up and threw a pillow at Ron, who sat up with a, "Wha...?" While Hermione cut Harry's sentence off.

"No, no! I was walking up here to get you two up for breakfast when I tripped and the top came off a step and this was inside." The look on her face said that she wasn't done talking yet, but Ron interrupted anyway.

"Why would someone hide a muggle game in the stairs?"

"I was getting there. I opened it up and there were pictures of Sirius, Lupin, Wormtail, and your parents, Harry!"

"What?" Harry stood up and grabbed the box out of Hermione's hands, He didn't care about being rude. He sat down on the floor, put down the box, and opened it, revealing a small pile of pictures and a tape recorder.

"What's that black box?" Ron asked, sitting down next to Harry and picking the tape recorder up.

"_Honestly_, Ron." Hermione sat down next to the two boys and took the recorder from Ron. "You need to take Muggle Studies. It's a tape recorder. It records voices on a tape that you can play back. let's listen, it's already rewound." She pushed the play button and, with a small click, a voice could be heard.

Harry, who had been laying out the pictures, stopped and looked at the tape recorder as if he could see the person who was talking.

"This is James Potter, reporting live from the Gryffindor Common Room with photographer, Peter Pettigrew. We're covering an exciting match of the muggle game, Monopoly, between... Good friends?... Seventh year Sirius Black and seventh year Remus Lupin. Right now-"

Two more voices cut in, "Shut that thing off!" It was hard to tell who was talking until they said something separately.

Sirius Black: "And put that camera away, Peter!"

Remus Lupin: "Where did you even get a tape recorder, James?"

In the silence that followed, Harry, Ron, and Hermione exchanged glances. Were they really hearing something from the Marauder's school days? Harry scrambled to find the pictures that went with what they were saying. He guessed that the one of a young, handsome Sirius and a young, annoyed looking Lupin was where they were so far. The two were yelling in the direction of the camera and were standing in front of a table with a Monopoly board on it. The side of the face of a laughing boy with messy black hair and glasses was barely visible in the bottom corner... James Potter.

"I... Er... Found it. Yeah, I found it on the ground..." There was a pause then James's voice took on an game-show-announcer-like tone. "So, back to the game. For four hours, the beloved, respected, amazing, wonderful, handsome-"

"Get on with it, already!" Harry frowned when he heard Pettigrew's voice, the traitor's voice was joking, and James laughed, but Harry hoped that Wormtail wouldn't be talking much more.

"Fine, fine, fine. The Marauders have been playing this muggle game for four hours, but three hours in, Wormtail and myself dropped out because it was boring as hell-" James was cut off another time.

"Actually, we both went bankrupt..." There was a picture of James giving the camera (aka Peter) the evil eye and then laughing.

"That may be... but it was still boring! Now, I turned this whatchamacallit on because things are about to get interesting... Padfoot, AKA Sirius, is almost broke and getting flustered, while Moony, AKA Remus's, patience is wearing thin- what with Padfoot's constant cheating and stupidity... And I think... Yes! Five, four, three, two, one!"

As soon as James reached one, Sirius's voice burst out of the recorder and the picture to match was of him standing up and yelling something at Remus. "Cheater! You're cheating! Stop stealing money from the bank!" In the same picture, Remus's eyes were closed and he was saying something to the yelling Sirius.

"I. Did. Not. Cheat. You keep accusing me of taking money, but you're the one who keeps stealing from the bank! Now pay me for landing on Boardwalk!"

"That's right, folks," James's voice was back, "Padfoot just landed on Boardwalk. He now has to pay a whopping 1200 galleons... Er... Dollars. Oh, Wormtail, I know what's coming. Hurry, take a picture when Padfoot puts his hand under the board."

"But... I... Ah-ha!" Harry found a picture of Sirius pulling money out from under the board and Remus standing up so fast he knocked his chair over.

"Who's cheating now?! You _cannot_ hide money under the board! It's in the rules! Just go out already!"

"You can too! I didn't steal this, I've had this since the beginning of the game!"

They were having an all out shouting match now.

"It's right here! Look at it! Look at it!" There was a picture of Remus pointing at a page in the rulebook (That he was practically shoving in Sirius's face). "_You must keep all money out in the open!_"

"Dammit! Well... I can mortgage this..."

"No! They're all mortgaged and you sold all of your houses! Face it, you're out!"

James's voice came back: "Yes, this seems to be at a close... Sirius put up a good fight, but we all knew in the end that Remus would walk away with the honor of being crowned king of the muggle American business empire and-"

"_SHUT UP!_"

"Well... I'm shocked! Are those two contestants being hostile towards _me?_ The wonderful and charming announcer man?"

"Yes! Now, Sirius, admit defeat!"

"Wait... Wait..." Sirius was obviously stalling for time. "Ah-ha!"

"What?" James's voice was mock scandalized. "More cheating?! I never would have guessed!"

There was a loud bang and then James's roaring laugh. "A-A-After... Hahaha!" He was trying to say something, but was overcome by laughter again. Harry, Ron, and Hermione laughed, too, when they saw the picture of what had made the bang:

Remus whipped out his wand, but instead of pointing it at Sirius, he pointed it at the board and it broke in half and pieces flew everywhere. Sirius was standing there looking pretty stunned.

"It seemed that after Sirius tried to sell houses that he had off the board the whole game to get the money to pay for landing on boardwalk, Remus flew into a blind rage and blew the board up! Who will be declared winner?!"

"Put that thing away!" There were more voices than just Sirius and Remus, it seemed James was getting on the nerves of the whole common room.

"Git, I was just about to win!"

"No you weren't!" Once again, more than one person answered, this time to something Sirius said.

After that, Remus went back and forth a few times about who won and there were the sounds of them cleaning up the game.

"Hey! Let's put this recorder thing, the pictures, and the game under that loose step on the way to the common room so future generations can see how to play!"

"Who's going to care that we played Monopoly, James?" It was Remus talking.

"Um, mine and Lily's children of course!" James's answer was quick and he actually sounded sure of himself. "They'll have my good looks and charm and her brains."

"Oh, I hope for their sake they don' have you're good looks or charm!" Sirius joked. "But, it's not such a bad idea..."

James spoke again, but his voice was getting distant like he was walking away. "Speaking of Lily, there she is. I need to ask her to the Halloween dance, I wouldn't want to have to go _stag _would I?" He and Sirius cracked up, while Peter and Remus groaned. "Oy, Evans!"

"Hey, Sirius," Remus said after a few seconds of silence, "have you ever heard of the muggle game, Risk?"

"Is that a challenge, Moony?"

And the tape ended. "Well, shall we play then?" Harry took out the board as Hermione and Ron nodded.


End file.
